Let Be Known
by Pyrasaur
Summary: After everything Kumatora and Duster have been through, at each other's sides, there's plenty they don't need to say. Duster/Kumatora


Kumatora knew she'd tell him eventually. She's not stupid and, however many times Duster's been told otherwise, he's not stupid, either. She sets her mind on it one day. Just decides enough is enough, and balls up her fists and socks a door frame a few times to take the edge off (hurts like hell), and goes and finds Duster bringing in firewood out back and tells him.

Just like that, too. Hey Duster, guess what, I can't stop thinking about you and if you left and I couldn't find you, I think I might die. It's like pulling out a splinter, all queasy-brave terror as she blurts it. The instant afterward is the best pain she's ever known.

He stares at her with dog-brown eyes. Just for a second and then he's turning away. That's his thinking pose, Kumatora knows it is. Don't freak out. Wait for him. He's tense down his back, between his shoulders where he's strong like wire cable.

He does his thinking and then says, reasonable as an early bedtime, that he cares a lot about her, too.

How dumb is this, standing around telling each other things they already know? Duster's looking at her again, careful so he doesn't miss anything, and they're just standing there in the sun, two people who care.

Okay. They're on the same page. Good, she says, and proceeds to tell him about that new spot she found for training. It's something to say and he's not going to stop giving her the dog eyes anytime soon.

She smacks the door frame a few more times when she gets back (still hurts like hell). Because it's a punk door frame and it looked at her funny, and she's overflowing with something fizzy and warm and she doesn't know what else to do.

Except see Duster again. Obviously. The next day, when they have breakfast together, which is actually more like Duster having his morning tea and Kumatora showing up in time to filch half of his toasted sesame seed bagel. She plunks down in the other kitchen chair. He doesn't even bother looking surprised about it.

She knew, Kumatora says idly, when she first found him at Club Titiboo. One glimpse of him in that godawful wig, focused purely on the flex of his fingers against bass strings, and she wanted life to quit being such a prick to him so she could see him smile like that more often. She nudges a white sesame seed closer to a burnt black sesame seed on the tabletop; they just look like they belong together.

She's made a little garland of crumbs around the sesame seeds by the time he answers. That long, he murmurs? Really?

Uh-huh, really. It seems like a million years have passed since then, distant like she's looking through glazed shower glass.

She should have told him sooner, Duster says. He hopes it didn't hurt, keeping the thought inside her like that.

What a ridiculously Duster thing to say. And he's looking at her now, sure as earth, over the rest of bagel she could probably have if she felt like it, it's okay Kumatora, he's not much of a breakfast person anyway. She's standing, circling the table to borrow his lap instead of his meal, to sit on him and take his bristly-because-he-hasn't-shaved-yet face in her hands. His breath is like low tide and she _doesn't care_, she kisses him until he starts doing it back.

The geezer picks that stupid moment to come around the corner. Nice one, Kumatora. Really smooth.

But forget about that, there's a whole day ahead and she said she was going to show Duster the new training spot, didn't she? It's a great day for it. Enough of a breeze to refresh the back of her neck without being a pain in the ass to shape her PSI flames against. Training prep isn't the sensation in the air, she knows damn well it isn't. This isn't her own Thunder creeping down her back as they walk through the shadows and leaves and calm, it's just the fact that he's there and he _knows_. She can still taste dead whales and tea.

The new spot is a channel Kumatora found in the cliff face, one tall groove like an elevator shaft with its elevator long gone. Duster studies it. He tests the surface with a thumbnail. He says it'll be fine for practice, and the regular routine settles in, her attacks on imaginary goons, his Staples biting into the rock.

They break for lunch in that really cloying hour around noon. The lemonade is the temperature of spit. He's got an idea for some flip he wants to be able to do off of a Wall Staple, because she saw what happened that time they faced a particularly tall reconstructed lion, Kumatora, he could use a technique that would give him a few more feet of vertical reach.

Yeah, Kumatora says, slouching, spreading her ungloved fingers into the grass. She could spot him later, if he wants. Neither of them bother pointing out that there's nothing to fight anymore.

It's nice here, in the shade of a big old oak tree. It's quiet because they don't have to say a thing. Duster gathers the shed sandwich wrappers and pauses, long enough for Kumatora to figure out where he's looking -- her purple-spotted knuckles -- and almost bite back her smirk.

He picks up her hand, to examine it and comment that these bruises are new, what has she been punching lately?

She grins. Nothing good, she says. She's grinning inside and out, her fingers swallowed up warm by his and lightning filling the air. Hey, she tells him, why don't we try that thing again?

The handspring? There's Duster's dog look, the one Boney couldn't do any better.

What? No. The other thing.

Oh, he murmurs, low as she scoots toward him. _Oh_.

Oak twigs bend easier when they've been sitting around in a puddle, and maybe that's why it's easier to work this the second time, because Duster's soaked up the idea. He's there to meet her. He's there as much as she is, partner and friend and whatever the hell else they are now. His wide soft hands belong on her back, like that time an ostrelephant got a lucky shot in and Duster was there picking her back up, except that she's much more dizzy this time.

Kissing is weird, she thinks, draping her arms around his neck. The contact between them is melting thought away but she's lucid enough to think that kissing is completely _weird_. Who first batted their lashes at somebody else and said hey, let's mash our-- _wow_, what was that, that was a spark through her veins as her tongue brushed his and she just _has_ to do that again.

It doesn't end so much as fade away. Part to breathe, and open her eyes and there he is, watching her like they've been half an inch apart for the last forever. Maybe one of them should say something barf-inducingly romantic here, but she just beams because she's happy again, spilling over bubbly on the inside, and Duster seems content to beam back at her.

They make a habit of training: an hourish or whatever, whenever they damn well feel like it. Which starts out twice a week, and turns into three times a week, and after that you might as well make it every day. Wess can say _training_ as pointedly as he wants, because Kumatora is pretty sure innuendo isn't allowed when you're that shrivelled up.

Duster is clockwork amazing, same as he's always been for anyone who bothers to look. He figures out this flip leading into a backwards axe kick, launching off a sturdy-wedged Wall Staple, practicing until he lands smooth as grease and he stops needing a shot of PSI after every third try. It's a beautiful move, high-arching and fast. It'd make a reconstructed lion sorry it was ever reborn. It's even good for Kumatora to practice her healing techniques that don't make anything explode -- if only she could focus the PSI strength faster, before Duster does that _why am I doing advanced acrobatics on this leg_ hiss of his.

The hourish of training turns into a half an hour sort of thing with a long lunch break. And there's not even much to do in the half hour, so hey, they might as well just relax. Run through their basics and then take it easy. Life is short. Duster is comfortable.

They watch clouds meander by, which would be seriously boring if she weren't pillowed by his chest, listening to the low rhythm-rush as he breathes. She toys one of his shirt buttons between her fingers -- the one suspended right over his navel -- because she can. Why does _boyfriend_ have to be such a brainless girl word? She tries to think of a substitute for a whole two seconds, and stops bothering; she'll never need a word for it. There's no reason for anyone but the sparrows to know how Kumatora glows when his fingers trace the knobs of her spine.

Should he take her somewhere, Duster asks?

Somewhere? Like where?

He doesn't know, he wonders. He's just fairly sure he should take her somewhere nice when they're together.

What, on a date? Out to gawk at the ocean sunset like people in Tazmily do before they get married? Except that Kumatora doesn't say that, just brays a laugh against Duster's chest and says aww, who needs to go anywhere, this is great as it is.

They fall asleep in the sun-heavy day; Kumatora ends up red as a boiled crab and Duster just turns an interesting shade of tanned. She mutters about how nasty flaky skin is, as she douses herself with Healing. Duster says he didn't notice, because she's always cute.

It takes her a second to realize that he gave her a compliment. Just threw it out there like it's not the mushiest goop he's ever said. He's focused on flicking the grass seed off his shirt; Kumatora punches him in the shoulder, and she doesn't mean it at all.

They're not doing much training lately, Duster comments one afternoon, over chicken.

Sure they are, she says. They tongue wrestle all the time. They're awesome at it. Pass the coleslaw?

He gives her that smirk that's mostly eyebrows. It just seems like a shame, he says, handing over the coleslaw, to get a good training routine going and then stop doing it.

Okay. How about they do some exercises after lunch?

He chews. He swallows. He decides that that sounds fine, even if they'll be slower than usual after a meal.

They don't mention that there were plenty of post-meal fights, before. Those weren't really meals so much as some nasty jerky that had been mashed around the bottom of Lucas's backpack for a year or so, but they still don't mention it. Kumatora puts down her fork.

Really, she says? Think the two of them are going soft?

He doesn't oblige her with an answer. At least not until they're getting up to gather the dishes, and Kumatora tries to land a sucker punch just for the hell of it but he's Duster, he's still _Duster_ and she's dizzily facing the trees before her fist is even moving. She turns around, grinning, falling into a bent-kneed stance; his foot whiffs past her head.

Come on, Duster, she says as she feints past the second kick, he's not trying.

He's still not answering her except for that dark, glittering shard of a smile, but the next kick strikes snake-hard and she wouldn't have it any other way. This is real sparring. This is her old buddy adrenaline lighting her up inside, and the blood draining from her hard-clenched fists, and those basic blocking moves Duster showed her a million years ago actually coming in handy. She catches his foot and cackles that no one's done that to him in ages, and he informs her that her _foot-catching technique_ is a bit messy, and oh it's _on_ now. It somehow ends with Kumatora on her back, gasping, calling him a cheater and laughing, just laughing.

He's got the decency to be kneeling over her, maybe because her half-assed tripping attempt actually worked or maybe her laughter just sounds like she's taken a whack too many to the head. The lunch napkins bunch under Kumatora as she props herself on an elbow; she might be sitting in the stupid coleslaw and that's great, as long as he's leaning down to her, kissing the breath out of her before she's even got a decent grip in the front of his shirt.

There's nothing unfamiliar about his body. Arms bracing around her as sure as planted Staples, chest muscles that shine when he's wet, the ribs she laid her hands on once before, finding the sore spot and pouring green PSI in. She wants more of him like this, when he's sweat-damp and loose because he's real right now. She only notices they're sinking lower once she's on her back again, wrapped up in grass and napkins and Duster, fumbling his shirt buttons open and noticing the deep, desperate tremor in his leg. She nudges him a half a dozen times before he gets the idea; the world turns over and she's sitting astride him.

Here, she mutters against his neck, see how _he_ likes it.

She's almost got his buttons open, and he's doing a better job of that spot on her neck now, distractingly better. There's definitely nothing unfamiliar about his body now, sitting where she is. Kumatora can stop denying it. She _did_ see his junk that one time in the hot spring, and from now on it'll never matter because she's unravelling him in a way she's never thought about, not head-on, anyway. Not buried in a moment like this. Something hungry coils in Kumatora, bright red as the trails his hands are leaving on her, and that's when she realises Duster is unravelling her right back.

After a while, Duster asks her to stop. He's as flushed as the first time he used an oxygen machine except that this, oh, this is a sight she wants to see. There's knowedge in the air around them, after that, hanging so thick Kumatora could hit it with a spitwad.

She's pretty much always over for breakfast now. Toast and tea and whatever crumbs of town news either of them can be bothered with. Mostly just the quiet morning hanging on everything. Wess eyes the two of them and doesn't say a word; maybe biting his tongue is the only way he knows how to be nice to Duster.

She said she had her own place now, Duster comments. Where?

In the Osohe courtyard, she says through a mouthful. Used to be part of that gravekeeper's tunnel, from the looks of it, but the new world made it into a cabin just for her.

He looks at her for a moment, that thinking look, determined as a turtle. She lives underground, Duster finally asks? He thought she liked high places better.

It's not underground. More like it was uprooted and dropped in the courtyard. The new world cleaned things up but damn, was it ever lazy sometimes and yeah, the top of the castle is still nicer.

Duster agrees. He pushes his plate toward her. No, no, he wasn't going to eat that second slice of toast anyway, he says in the twist of his brow. It's a regular morning. She never knew what regular was until she got to know him.

He hasn't seen the castle in a while, has he, Kumatora says, taking her warm-buttered prize. Let's go. You and me.

She itches to look at the Osohe walls now, itches so bad she could smack the door frame around some more (her knuckles sting at the thought) but she's not about to actually say that part.

Everything is square-edged in the new world, wiped free of its dust and shuffled tight into place. There used to be places for Kumatora to grip, dig her fingertips into loose mortar and brace on bowing corners and climb like a little pink-haired monkey. She looks up at ruler-neat walls now. She can't imagine how she did it before. Duster takes out his Staples; he smiles a little like he's remembering, too.

It looks like a whole new castle, he says once they're inside.

Yeah, Kumatora says? Still looks like Osohe to her.

Hmm, maybe she's right. Just because things change doesn't mean they're different.

It's one of those times she stops -- so all her thoughts pile into each other like a cheap comedy act -- and she realizes how absolutely, perfectly _right_ Duster has no idea he is. They've changed but they're the same, years after everything, walking through the old castle and knowing who each other was. Kumatora leaves that alone for a bit. She listens to their footsteps rattle away into the not-dusty corners; she pulls the thought out to think about again once they get to a very particular stairwell.

Remember this spot?

He pauses. He looks around at the stone and shadows. Yeah, he says. He remembers.

It's the stairwell where she sat for hours, staring at that stupid trap and thinking, hey, coyotes do this all the time. It's the stairwell old Wess's voice echoed in when he got excited. It's the place Kumatora first met the plain, quiet guy who swiped her pendant.

She should keep a closer eye on the castle, she mutters. If she ever finds another trap, she'll kick the geezer's ass.

And Duster laughs at that, the way she's only heard a handful of times, the real way that hooks her warm inside. He's got smile lines forming like spider silk around his eyes; Kumatora never noticed before but it's her mission now to make those bigger. That'd be a great change.

They find a few of the same old ghosts -- some passed on, and some are still swilling wine through their ghost bodies and onto the Osohe carpets. They check the dark crannies of the basement, even though it means doing the dance and Kumatora knows damn well that Duster watches her do it; he's smirking afterward; he doesn't do that for no reason. Duster sticks a few Staples into the walls for old times' sake, and they find the places that used to have gaping holes but are now just plain, reliable floor. They talk a bit about Rope Snake. Only a bit. Kumatora hopes that lying little bastard is doing alright, and Duster hopes the same except without the _bastard_ part.

Eventually the air tastes cooler. They pass a window to see the last gold smears of sunset over the heavy-shadowed forest.

He should head back to town, Duster says, if he's going to.

There's plenty of space in this old dump, Kumatora says lightly, resettling her hand in his.

That sounds good. It would be nice, he figures, to spend a night in here without getting attacked by anything, since the castle is a special place.

She hadn't thought of it like that before. But it sounded like Duster hadn't either, and like he wasn't really thinking about it now; he just laces his fingers tighter into hers.

They reach the master bedroom -- King Osohe's, maybe, if that guy ever existed at all. There's no dust or plaster bits caking the place anymore, just a glossy silk expanse of a bed, big enough to play tennis on. Kumatora gets to work making a comfortable mess out of it. It takes her a second and a few scattered pillows to notice that Duster hasn't followed her.

Well, he says, that was fun. He's glad they came. And then he's supposing something very reasonable about finding a couch to sleep on, he's pretty sure he just passed one.

It sits strangely in the air, while Duster stands across the room and thinks. Why did Kumatora bring him here, her mind sings, why did she let the two of them end up in a bedroom in the quiet-still night? Because Kumatora gets things done. She must have decided to throw herself into the middle of this, clench her fists and grit her teeth and let it all happen.

Hey, she says. Stay here tonight.

He blinks a few times. Right here?

Yeah, Duster. With her.

Kumatora's voice is gone too fast, because it's too small and too damn reasonable to stand up against the darkness. She whacks her pillow into shape just to make noise. Duster hums once. There's more quiet to drown in.

The rest of Tazmily, Duster says at the careful pace he always thinks, would say they shouldn't share a bed like that unless they're married.

She settles into sheets that should smell musty but don't. She lies facing the wall. Well, she replies, she doesn't care what anyone else thinks. Does he?

Off-beat footsteps come closer. No. He guesses he doesn't.

The bed sinks with his weight. His touch settles on her, filling the dip of her waist she's never liked much before now. It's a girly shape for a person to be made of. His hand rests in it and _fits_ there.

That's great for a few minutes, soakingly nice like lying in the sun. It takes Duster that long to shift closer, body-glow warm against her back, nose burying in her hair. Her hand spreads over his and they track up her breastbone together to cup her bursting heart. It's almost perfect. He's gentle around her like he's holding a glossy-shelled beetle in his palm, gentle like she's something special and Kumatora can't take it any more, she squirms in his arms to face him. He's not getting away this time.

It takes a while for those hands to wrap her completely. It's after that weird electric sensation passes, that memory of the half-dozen almosts. After shrugging clothes away, like it's just another dip in the hot springs. After she presses to him in a way she hadn't known existed, close enough to squish her breasts to nothing between them and combine their body heat into a fever. His fingers spread like a blanket over her back, and that's the moment Kumatora realizes how deep she's in and how little she'd mind to drown.

She's sure, Duster says?

Yeah. She shifts against the hot, familiar shape of him. Of course she's sure.

He hums, low and vibrating against her skin. It blurs sensation for a moment and then there are his nose and lips and scratchy lines of moustache again.

She wishes for a door frame to punch, just to take the edge off. She has one hard-writhing instant where she changes her mind but she changes it back in the time it takes to gasp a jagged breath.

Damnit, Duster, she says. She's not made of glass.

He stills, and watches her with sorry eyes. He knows better than to believe her. Images pour in through her PSI, a million warm grains in the instant they're looking deep into each other; walking dusty paths; staring down the impossible; nursing each other back from the edge of death. He'd wait forever if Kumatora told him to and that thought calms all the trembling things inside her. Fine, she thinks. Fine. She breathes against his neck until the raw stretch of it eases. If anyone was going to split her like a melon and see how soft she glistens, she wouldn't want anyone but him.

Okay, she says. Take it easy.

His hand shivers lower on her back, cradles her and pulls her closer. Here they are, together, completely. There's a rhythm finding itself and this whole tangled arrangement starts to make sense. They're teammates, they're buddies, they do this point-and-counterpoint thing like breathing.

Huh, Kumatora thinks. Not bad. She sinks a hand into his hair and smiles, wide and sly. She's not about to wait for the tremor in his bad leg -- this damn angle, crouched low over her, too focused to think -- and Kumatora nudges him twice before he gets the idea. The world turns over. She's straddling Duster like she means it this time, and she kisses him to swallow the small, grateful sound he makes, and she plants her palms on his chest as threads unravel at her edges.

It's a weird, sticky, awkward thing for two people to do. The raw feeling swells and fades every time she she moves, turning into something fascinating and back again; Duster's hands settle on her hips like he's just checking that she's real; who cares who invented this one, because they were on to something.

Kumatora tingles afterward. Up and down her nerves, over her cooling skin, everywhere she's sore. She wonders if she's about to learn some soft little technique. She's already learned that she likes those sounds she pries out of Duster, and that the quiet isn't half as tough as it sounds. Shivers fade out of Duster and he holds her, sighing as mild as ever. It's no afternoon nap they're settling into but she'll take it.

There's something forming on his tongue, something as heavy as his pulse.

What is it, Kumatora makes herself ask.

It's huge and real, this moment right now, like looking up at a cliff they survived falling from.

He's thought about this for a long time, he decides. Not _this_ exactly, but being with her, just ... being with her. And he's feeling so happy right now, because she's everything in the world to him.

Kumatora says nothing. She lays her forehead on his chest. She sucks at these feelings things but Duster relaxes and draws her in deliciously close; he doesn't mind. He'd never, ever mind.

She should say it. This is going to bug her, she thinks in the dark and warmth and strong-armed him. Kumatora chews her lip. She listens to the crickets sing and the castle stone settling cooler. She murmurs that she feels the same about him.

He snores. No big deal, she thinks, closing her eyes against his chest. They're telling each other things they already know.

Waking up isn't weird. She's using Duster as a pillow, like the good old days of couch-crashing. She's felt that morning stubble before, too.

She kind of hopes no one finds out. But she feels so glorious she must be glowing, pink and blue neon, and Lucas very quietly says he's happy for them and oh screw it, Kumatora doesn't care if the whole world knows about it. There's more breakfast and more training, until Duster could probably kick the tallest thing that ever needed its butt handed to it and Kumatora could finish it off.

Duster isn't her boyfriend. He's her _partner in ass-kickery_, actually. Kumatora actually says that one day, and then goes home and gives the door frame hell (she's got to stop doing that).

She tells Duster about it and he says yeah. That's exactly what he is. He quirks his brow and he smiles, because he meant the _partner_ part and maybe even the _ass-kickery_ part.

Close enough, Kumatora figures. As long as they both know what they're talking about.


End file.
